2014

What blog wouldn’t be complete without the New Year’s resolutions? Like everyone else in amateur radio blogademia, I’ve got some resolutions for 2014:

Get my contest CW speed up to 35 WPM. I really wanted to make a resolution that I would do some ragchew CW QSOs in order to increase my overall speed, but I know that’s just not realistic. Therefore I’m going to attempt to increase my contesting speed, mainly by operating more contests and practicing with Morse Runner when on business trips.

Not view QRZ or use it for callsign lookups each day in 2014. A lot of radio amateurs do a QSO-a-day thing for a year. Not me. I travel too much and just can’t get on the air every day. And I have a life outside of amateur radio. So I’m doing something else to further my enjoyment of amateur radio, I’m not going to go to QRZ.com for 365 days and will use other services for callsign lookups. Now that I’m using InoReader, I will depend on RSS feeds from numerous other sources for getting my amateur radio news fix. I’m going to buck the “I’m Good on QRZ” trend. Call it No-Zed-A-Day. I’ll be tracking my progress on this blog, so check in periodically to see how I’m doing. Wish me luck.

Make a serious effort with satellites. Amateur radio satellites have been going through a bit of a renaissance or rebirth recently. The old guard will bemoan the demise of the HEO or High Earth Orbit satellites of yesteryear. LEOs or Low Earth Orbit satellites are where it’s at, as the recent launch of numerous cube satellites will attest. They represent and benefit from favorable trends in amateur radio and technology: miniaturization, efficiency, cheap computing power, open source software, and an open and energetic community of volunteers, supporters, and followers. I need to complete my Frankenrotator project and get my satellite station on the air.

Make the trek to Dayton. I’ve never been to Dayton and I keep saying each year that I’m going. I know I’m going to hate the facilities, dislike the hoards of people, and vow to never go again, but I feel I really need to do this once and get it off my bucket list, before Hara Arena crumbles into a pile of dust. Expect blog posts about this and please bear with me while this passes through my system.

Organize some multi-operator events. There’s something I really enjoy about getting together with a group of amateurs to work a contest, climb a mountain, camp out, build something, or do all of these at once. I vow to organize some events with local radio friends.

Organize a DXpedition for 2015. I intend on getting my feet wet with DXpeditioning in 2015, and hopefully will organize or participate in a DXpedition every two years after that until I go to the big hamshack in the sky. This DXpedition won’t be a big one like Amsterdam Island, but my goal is to eventually work my way up to some top 20 most wanted DX entity expeditions.

Continue doing cool stuff with Arduinos. I’m still having fun developing software for Arduinos to do cool amateur radio stuff. The Radio Artisan Group which supports my projects has almost reached 500 members. Everyday I get email from people around the world asking about projects or bouncing ideas around. We really do have a lot of innovative and creative people in amateur radio.

Those are my amateur radio resolutions for the year. Happy New Year and 73!